Digital cameras are becoming increasingly popular and as a result, a demand for image processing software that allows photographers to edit digital images exists. In many instances, unwanted objects and/or artefacts are captured in digital images. Removing these unwanted objects and/or artefacts from the digital images without degrading image quality is often desired.
Many techniques for removing artefacts from images have been considered. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,558 to Glover et al. discloses a method and apparatus for removing objects from CT images in which localized regions of the original object are not reproduced in order to illuminate artefacts generated by objects within those regions. An operator defines a rub-out region encompassing the object to be removed. An average function within the rub-out region, which is strongly influenced by the discontinuity created by the object, is then created. The projection set is modified using the average function to eliminate the object from the projection set. The modified projection set is then used to create a reconstructed image.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,405 to Kojima discloses an image amending method wherein selected pixel data to replace original pixel data is generated based primarily on ordinary pixels, which are adjacent the original pixels to be replaced. Pixels around an attention pixel to be replaced are classified into groups in accordance with their closeness to the attention pixel. Depending on the nature of the attention pixel, different pixels surrounding the attention pixel are examined to determine the value of the pixel to be used to replace the attention pixel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,194 to Cok discloses a cloning technique for digital image retouching. During the cloning technique, a cloned area and a surround area are determined. Using image pixel values, the mean, slope and quadratic coefficient in each colour are computed for the cloned area and the surround area and if desired for sub-regions of the surround area. The values of the cloned pixels are adjusted so that their mean, slope and quadratic term match the mean, slope and quadratic term of the surround area or of the best fitting sub-region of the surround area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,498 to Venable discloses a method for synthesizing background texture in an image. During the method, a texture exemplar from an image is selected and an area to be back filled is identified. An estimate of the synthesized texture is generated and predetermined spatial domain constraints are applied to the estimate. The spatial domain constraint estimate is operated upon by a Fourier transform to create a spectral function. Predetermined spectral domain constraints are applied to the spectral function and an inverse Fourier transform is performed to produce a synthesized texture. The synthesized texture is inserted into the area of the image to be back filled if it is determined to be adequate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,892,853 to Hirani et al. discloses a method for removing scratch and wire noise from digitized images. The method utilizes a soft edge noise mass to allow a smoother blending of the reconstructed noise and the image around the noise. The method utilizes both spatial and frequency domains to reconstruct contiguous noisy pixels and reconstruct textures.
Although the above-described references disclose methods for editing images, there exists a need for an improved system and method of removing unwanted objects and/or artefacts from a digital image. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method of editing a digital image to remove unwanted artefacts, objects and the like.